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February 14, 2012 | Crystal Paine

World’s Easiest Non-Dairy Whipped “Cream”

Since one of my children is currently on a dairy-free, gluten-free diet, I’ve been on a mission to find some creative alternatives to things they usually eat that are healthful and yummy. I’ve had a number of flops, but I’ve also hit on a few yummy recipes, too.

Like this Non-Dairy Whipped Cream that I made last week. It’s so simple and easy to make and we all agreed that it was yummy–especially if you can’t eat regular whipped cream!

World’s Easiest Non-Dairy Whipped “Cream”

1 can coconut milk

1/4-1/2 cup powdered sugar (or other sweetener of your choice)

1/2 to 1 teaspoon vanilla

Put can of coconut milk in the refrigerator overnight. The next day, open it and spoon out into a bowl (it should be somewhat hardened from refrigeration). Add powdered sugar and vanilla.

Whip until it resembles whipped cream. Serve!

Coming up tomorrow: The recipe for incredibly delicious Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Waffles (I’m so excited about these!)

I’m allergic to cow’s milk. Skim milk is included in the list of ingredients on the cool whip container. Also I believe whey and cassein which are parts of cow’s milk or dairy. You will notice on no container of Cool Whip does it say “dairy free”.

Wow, not even an hour ago I was telling my mother-in-law that my son (who is currently on a dairy-free diet) was not going to be able to have cool whip with his Valentine’s Jell-o. What a timely article for me! I won’t be able to make it for tonight, but definately will be using this in the near future. I’m finding dairy-free challenging, especially since I’m not terribly handy in the kitchen. Thanks a bunch!

Thanks so much, Crystal! I have a daughter with soy/dairy allergies, and its always a challenge to find good recipes. This week, my goal is to try out making coconut yogurt in my yogurt machine. I have only tried making dairy based yogurt with the machine so far and I thicken it to my liking (the way most American yogurts are made) using agar agar and a few tablespoons of powdered milk. I’m thinking I will probably need some extra agar agar and some coconut powder to thicken up the yogurt. Thought I’d throw it out there–there are some good tutorials on the internet for making coconut yogurt.

What about using some plain gelatin as a thickener? I put a little more than a teaspoon of it in my two quarts of milk yogurt while heating it. My yogurt is then pretty much guaranteed to thicken up one way or the other!

I don’t like to use more than that amount of gelatin, because I don’t appreciate Jello textured yogurt, but a little bit of it seems to work well, and hey, plain gelatin is very healthy for you too!

I suppose some folks with severe allergies couldn’t handle the gelatin, but I would think it would work for most.

Yes! The other brands I tried including 365 Whole Foods, Goya, and Trader Joe’s (and a few others I can’t remember) – weren’t very good. Some worse. Mostly water and not a lot of “cream” left. Thai Kitchen had much more cream left on top after sitting in the fridge overnight.

Natural Value brand is of similar quality to Thai Kitchen. I’m not sure of the price difference though. I get it for almost wholesale through my co-op. Amazon carries it too, or at least they used to . . .

Savoy Coconut Cream is one you can find at Asian food stores that is really creamy… it usually costs between $2 and $2.50. If the can states “Coconut Cream” instead of “Coconut Milk” you have a better chance of it being thick and less watery.

I had read about coconut cream being basically the same thing as what is created by sitting the can in the fridge overnight. We have a lot of Asian markets around here – I will have to go in and check. Thanks for the tip!

I found a frozen non-dairy alternative in the kosher section of the freezer section. Comes in a carton like heavy cream. It whips up like whipped cream with no dairy or casein. And it is only $1.49 a carton.

Coffee-Rich? I love that stuff, even though it is bad for you. I have never tried whipping it, though! I am glad to hear someone else buys coffee-rich, if that is what you speak of. My biggest fear is that the company will no longer make it because of all the popular “alternatives” out there for truly non-dairy coffee creamer. The soy and coconut creamers just don’t do it for me, but everyone else seems to like them. There is only one store here that carries Coffee-rich.

-Only use the “cream” that has come to the top of the can. Don’t use the water left at the bottom.
-The generic brands of coconut milk did not work for this….unfortunately, the more expensive brands work the best.
-For a more natural version, that tastes just as good as using powdered sugar….use honey and a bit of vanilla extract…tastes sooooo good!

This is just as good as “Cool Whip”, and is great even if you aren’t a dairy free family.

As a topping for waffles/pancakes, you can mix up 1/2 c peanut or almond butter and 1 cup yogurt (or half the amounts). Also works well as a fruit dip. Or for homemade flour tortilla cinnamon chips–but I can’t find a good gluten free alternative for that.

Just wondering: I though Cool Whip (or at least the generic versions) was dairy-free. Are people avoiding that because it has gluten, or just because it has many crazy mystery ingredients? Certainly, this coconut sounds like a better alternative.

Your question has already been answered, but I wanted to also point out that it is the same type of thing for coffee creamers like Coffeemate, etc. It is important to note that, because the labels do say “non-dairy” so a person might think it is OK to serve to a person with a dairy allergy, but really, it is not.

Just a reminder that vegans (we’re not 100%, but are mostly vegan) use these kinds of recipes all the time. There are SO MANY vegan blogs and cookbooks that have great dairy alternative recipes. One of my favorites is from Veganomicon, by Isa Moskowitz. She has a great website as well. Good luck!

Thanks for this recipe! I’ve also been inspired by a new cookbook I checked out from the library, which has all dairy-free, gluten free recipes (including donuts!). It’s called Cooking for Isaiah. Have you heard of it?

Crystal-I found Chocolate Covered Katie through you site. This is similiar to the chocolate mousse shots on her blog. I made them last weekend and they were sooo good. My first time buying coconut milk. Thanks for the ideas!

For the people asking about cool whip: Stuff labeled “non-dairy” actually can have portions of dairy in it. It has to say “dairy-free” to have no dairy at all. Perhaps “non-dairy” is okay for people who are lactose intolerant, but if you have a dairy allergy, it must be “dairy-free.” Just a silly labeling difference, but important if you have allergies.

One of my favorite vegan blogs has a recipe for cookie dough freezer fudge that would be amazing with this whipped “cream. You should try it…and any of the other recipes on her site. I haven’t tried one yet, that I didn’t love.

We’re loving the dairy free recipes. We did the coconut milk cream at Thanksgiving for pumpkin pie. It was the best whipped cream alternative we tried. We bought some cashew creme after that. My son w/o allergies loved it, but my son with the dairy allergy hated it.

Totally not whipped cream related, but I wanted to throw out there a dairy free treat my son loves: Oreo Truffles made with Tofutti cream cheese instead of regular cream cheese and covered with melted dairy free chocolate chips.

I made this last week to try out, and yes, it does taste like coconut. i LOVE coconut, but one of my kids does NOT, and he wouldn’t eat it (even though he didn’t know how I made it). I was disappointed! 🙁

FYI, Pillsbury white frosting doesn’t have dairy in the ingredients. Granted, there’s not much in there that’s good for you, but if you ever need something quick and sweet, at least you wouldn’t be compromising the diet. 🙂 We’re experimenting with dairy and (mostly) grain free around here, too–it’s way harder than it sounds!

I admire you for trying GF for your child. It actually presents four significant challenges: cost, cooking time, planning, and tastefulness for kids used to gluten/flour. It’s not easy, and probably the reason more people don’t try to do it. I’m passing on a few tips that you or other readers new to GF may be interested in:

Bob’s Red Mill is your best friend–available at Sprouts. And it’s often on sale–watch the monthly specials. Don’t use the biscuit mix for pie crusts–gack–the frozen crusts they have at Sprouts are good but expensive (we relented when we had a huge # of people over). I don’t like their bread mix, though, but I think Janelle has a mix listed on her site. The GF cornbread mix makes a huge batch, and the chocolate cake is to die for but takes longer in my oven than it says. The GF oats are good too–and that’s 20 single servings (or more with little ones) for $4. Sometimes you can get Bob’s in bulk on Amazon, but I recommend trying indiv. packets first.

It is so much easier to make non-GF foods–so much easier to use wheat flour for everything. But I’ve found some good GF foods on your site too–as with the granola. You may want to give Indian foods a try as well. There’s an inexpensive grocery (Taj Mahal off Central and Beltline) in Richardson/N Dallas, but you can do your own too with fresh veggies and basmati rice. Walmart even carries garam masala in spices now. You can’t beat rice and veggies!

If you need convenience foods, Vans waffles are the best and sometimes on sale at Krogers. Krogers has a lot of GF too. Sometimes it’s very hard to do GF b/c of the cost.

My child has a lot of pain and GF helps him. It’s difficult to get enough calories into him that way since he doesn’t like a lot of GF foods (always was a picky eater)–he started losing weight, so now we’re as GF as possible but not 100%, even though it takes 100% to really help with pain. It can actually take several months to tell a significant difference with eliminating gluten. It helps me too–I increasingly get sick with gluten, very sick. I keep trying to go off GF to save $ and because it’s very physically difficult for me to cook; your blog is helping me cut expenses in other ways. The GF granola–wow, a money saver.

Cereals that are GF–Rice Krispies makes a GF available at Walmart. Walmart also has 2 pastas that are GF. They also often have the Envirokids cereals and GF bars. They have the Bisquick GF mix and the Duncan Hines GF cake mixes as well. One thing I’ve noticed is that the cereals are not as enriched with B vitamins and iron–a Flintstones can help (that’s one my kid will take at least). Nature’s Path cereal is wonderful but pricy compared to what you can get w/coupons.

Gluten Free Girl has a blog, website, and books that emphasize what you can eat rather than what you can’t–makes you feel enriched to look at her website.

I have two sons who are allergy kids. The hardest part is many Items that seem OK have hidden ingredients. One of my kids is corn free and dairy free. We found out the hard way about the hidden ingredients such as casein and whey. Corn free is also hard. Many cereals and other prepackaged food don’t have corn products in them, but many can have cornstarch used to keep the product from sticking to the packaging. We found out the hard way with his medications, many have corn starch or corn syrup bases.